Every day I tell myself that I am going to blog when I'm done with the chores... yeah, that! It seems they are never ending, and this unusually cold & snowy winter has left me with some scraggly looking perennials. Luckily, except for one lavender shrub and some Salvia, it looks like they may make a comeback, although time will tell if they are too damaged to look good anymore! Here are some of the things that have made me cringe...
This is my hummingbird garden. It's right below my deck and is a very visible and usually comforting feature of my yard. It is filled with Salvia, Catmint, Rosemary, a potted Sumac, ornamental grass, and water lilies. The top pic is the way it should look come summer, unfortunately I had to remove massive amounts of dead tissue and the bottom pic is the way it looks now! I think I will have to replace the Salvia, but will place some potted flowers there in the interim for the hummingbirds when they come. It is said that the same hummingbirds visit the same places year to year, so it is always exciting to welcome them back. I usually have several there every day but it looks like I may have to supplement with a feeder for the first time until the new plants get established. The little pond is also where we get dragonflies laying their eggs. I cleaned it out yesterday and found my 2 goldfish survived their 3rd winter, amazing, and we now have 2 frogs that have taken up residence!
I have been pulling weeds like crazy, and this picture shows nothing is perfect all the time! I think too many times I show a close up pic of something nice but crop out the bad, LOL! This area does have many perennials starting to show growth at the ground level, but I need to get the weeds out of the way to find them! This area holds ornamental grass, Clematis, Bee Balm, Oregano, Yarrow, Fennel, Catmint, Gaura and some other random beneficial insect stuff that I can't remember until it leafs out!
Got Weeds?
The above 2 pics are of the same area during summer, a big difference!
Found this pot in the upper pic that I think I had meant to throw in the trash last fall but never made it that far... good thing since the "dead" plant in there survived winter with its roots exposed and is now blooming - needless to say I quickly gave it a home (lower pic)!
Granny, are you proud? I did it, finally! I made this a kids project and they thought it was a lot of fun. The carrot napkins went in this past weekend and are under a board hoping for good germination. If you are wanting more success in germinating your carrots, check out this tutorial from Annie's Kitchen Garden, thanks, Gran!
We also purchased a large rack for our patio to harden off seedlings. I had a small wire one last year but it is falling apart and this one is better suited to being left outdoors. In keeping with my rule of everything having at least 2 purposes, this fit the bill well. In addition to hardening off my seedlings, during the summer I will fill it with container plants to act as a screen for all the meters and phone boxes the original builder was so kind to install smack dab in the middle of our patio - and as my husband demonstrates above, it can sleep our family of 4 in 12 square feet! Don't laugh... it's tempting! To be honest, it's larger than my husband's sleeping racks aboard ship, so with an added pillow, he's right at home. Speaking of, hubby went to sea again Monday night, only a couple of weeks this time, but the big deployment has been moved several times and now we are hearing May, it is frustrating since he was originally supposed to deploy in November, we have been in the "make no plans" mode for too long. Off to make use of this nice weather today... got weeds?
